Stewart Florsheim

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Coming to Prayer

It is not in the heavens.
--Deuteronomy 30:12
 
Finding faith is opening a window into the world:
a glimpse of the Himalayas, a curtain of waterfalls,
a flock of birds in the shape of an aleph.
 
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First comes the Big Bang: the universe expands,
galaxies spread across the sky, the heavens
separate the waters above from the waters below.
 
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The Zohar says nothing is known beyond the infinite
so it is called Beginning: a baby lamb, redwood sapling,
a dying woman counting her final breaths.
 
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God puts Abraham to the test or is it
the other way around—our need for fear as great as
our need for angels, our need for words.
 
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Preparing for ritual is ritual itself:
wrapping the tallit around one’s shoulders—
shawl that envelops the generations.
 
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The barrier protecting Gilo is dismantled:
a boy playing with a soccer ball
kicks it across an imaginary divide.
 
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When we light the candles, we are complicit
with the dark: a family fleeing Kabul
hoping to find a safer life across a border.
 
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In Deuteronomy, You shall love Adonai your God.
A man weeps, another man trembles:
It is not in the heavens.